I stand corrected. Both are also members of this forum. There are so many SSPX priests who still mistrust Bishop Fellay and want him to step down as SG. They will tell you so in private conversation. Yet there are some lay people who are blindly following and defending him and his appointees. I can understand people being reluctant to even think about quitting their chapels, but if we do not want to be a part of the Novus Ordo then we should make our voices heard.
I must not be very up-to-date as far as the SSPX goes so might I ask what you mean by this? Is not Bishop Fellay our Superior General and doing his best for us? Would the saintly archbishop elevated him to the rank of bishop had he not thought Fellay could handle it? Last I knew we had signed nothing with Rome so I struggle to see why you are jumping to conclusions.
I did not give you a thumbs down! Bp F began talking to the Vatican sometime after the Jubilee Pilgrimage of 2000. In the early 2000s his stance was no compromise on doctrine and the New Mass. There were occasions when an agreement seemed to be in the making but something or the other stalled this. We were told that the talks were off but yet, in his very next Letter to Friends & Benefactors, BpF would say: You must be wondering what's the position of our talks with Rome ( supposedly "off"!). I began to distrust him. He said this sort of thing right up to his conference in Manila in December 2011. The talks are finished. Yet, he squeezed in a line that he had heard from "someone" that the Pope had something even better on offer! What a way to behave!!!. All through 2012 it seemed clearer to some of us, that BpF had discarded the need for doctrinal safeguards prior to an agreement but had opted for canonical recognition first. Others had pointed out his change of stance as early as 2009. He went to Rome to sign an agreement on St Anthony's Day 2012 but was tripped up at the last minute by the personal intervention of BXVI, demanding that he utterly accept Vatican II and the New Mass. He was not prepared for this, thinking ( and given to understand by some) that such a demand would not be made publicly but rather a canonically recognized structure would be offered to the SSPX on that day.
Considering your comment on his being elevated to the rank of bishop by Abp Lefebvre, reports suggest that a leading Swiss benefactor appealed to the late Archbishop to include a Swiss national among the bishops he was to consecrate in 1988. The Bishops of the SSPX are there to conduct Confirmations and Ordinations/Consecrations. Abp L did not appoint BpF as Superior General.
Bp F began talking to the Vatican sometime after the Jubilee Pilgrimage of 2000.
And it was even
before that Pilgrimage that Rome already was talking about "heal the Lefebvre schism" and Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos invited the SSPX bishops to talk to him. Not to mention
GREC was already talking about 'reconciling' the SSPX with NewRome in the 1990s.
In the early 2000s his stance was no compromise on doctrine and the New Mass. There were occasions when an agreement seemed to be in the making but something or the other stalled this. We were told that the talks were off but yet, in his very next Letter to Friends & Benefactors, BpF would say: You must be wondering what's the position of our talks with Rome ( supposedly "off"!).
This letter has a sort of example of that. Menzingen denied the talks, even though, as +BW points out, the source that said there was a meeting was a "normally reputable Catholic news agency." +W writes the letter giving the benefit of the doubt to Menzingen, but I wonder if even he had his doubts back then, and hence includes the info that the source was "normally reputable" and that "it persisted in its story at first."
[Uh oh; links not working again. Not sure why. I will type the letters with some spaces to see if it at least shows up:
h t t p : / / stas.org/publications/rectors-letters-separator/rectors-letter/264.html
I put lots of links in this post; if anyone wants to see them, they might show up if you "quote" my post, and while still in editing mode, they should show up]
BpF would say: You must be wondering what's the position of our talks with Rome ( supposedly "off"!).
Yes, that became very tiresome after a while. Every talk he gives is that 2 or 3 hour conference, where he assumes we're all so fascinated by the status of his "relations with Rome."
I began to distrust him. He said this sort of thing right up to his conference in Manila in December 2011.
But he did sometimes let some things slip, at least when
not talking to a Trad audience.
From an interview granted by the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX/SSPX) to the Caledonian newspaper Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes (Dec. 27, 2010):
Q: The goal of your Fraternity is still to integrate the Catholic Church?
+BF: Yes, we have always maintained that we do not wish to go our own way. We maintain that we are Catholic and that we remain so. We wish that Rome will recognize us as true Bishops. Otherwise, the word schismatic is not used any longer regarding us. Now, if we are not schismatics, nor heretics, then we are truly Catholic. Otherwise, the Pope says that there is solely a problem of a canonical nature. An act of Rome suffices to state that it's over and that we reenter the Church. This will happen. I am very optimistic.
[Source: Le Forum Catholique; tip: Le Salon Beige]
... He went to Rome to sign an agreement on St Anthony's Day 2012 but was tripped up at the last minute by the personal intervention of BXVI, demanding that he utterly accept Vatican II and the New Mass. He was not prepared for this, thinking ( and given to understand by some) that such a demand would not be made publicly but rather a canonically recognized structure would be offered to the SSPX on that day.
And it should be noted that he did accept Vatican II in the doctrinal note he sent to Rome (per info from Fr. Pfluger), but only in an ambiguous way:
"The entire tradition of catholic faith must be the criteria and guide in understanding the teaching of the second Vatican council, which, in turn, enlightens certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church implicitly present within itself [the council] and not yet formulated."
, and the change on the day in question was they wanted him to be much more
explicit.
Considering your comment on his being elevated to the rank of bishop by Abp Lefebvre, reports suggest that a leading Swiss benefactor appealed to the late Archbishop to include a Swiss national among the bishops he was to consecrate in 1988. The Bishops of the SSPX are there to conduct Confirmations and Ordinations/Consecrations. Abp L did not appoint BpF as Superior General.
Yes, not to mention that the Archbishop's first three choices for bishop
disagree with +F on this deal business.